


this sweet plague that follows me

by followinyourafterglow



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Post-Series, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 14:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followinyourafterglow/pseuds/followinyourafterglow
Summary: time moves differently when you’re standing still (or that summer Rory goes to see Jess and never really quite leaves). post-series literati.





	this sweet plague that follows me

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote most of this fic last summer in anticipation of the revival but never got around to completing it. However, now that we have all seen the mess that was the GG revival and had time to digest it and because it hurt my soul, I realized I had to go back and release all my nervous energy in finishing this. It is not ‘fix it’ fic in it’s traditional sense because nothing that happened in the revival happens here, but I’m very surprised how much of it was emulated in the revival (or at least what the revival should have attempted to address). I’ve taken some slight liberties with the events after S6. 
> 
> (The title is from the Keaton Hansen song Flesh and Bone.)

 

After Luke and Lorelai’s wedding Rory moves to Europe. A year and a half later she comes back. Logan asks her to marry him (again) and she says yes.

 

This time Rory Gilmore gets married.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(But first:

 

Rory calls him once from London. He can hear the sound of cars rushing over wet pavement from the other end of the line and like an idiot Jess waits for her to say something first instead of hanging up. Some habits are still hard to break.

 

“What did you mean?” she asks, finally, “When you said I should call you if I needed cheering up?”

 

“What?”

 

“Did you think I would be unhappy?”

 

“You’re working for, arguably, the biggest broadcasting company in the world, Rory,” he answers, “This is what you wanted, right?”

 

He hears her exhale out of her nose and the sound is so familiar, nearly pulls him into a lull of memories he knows might leave him completely undone.  

 

“I left to be great, Jess. I left to be a great journalist. To be great at something again. The type of person I couldn’t be at home.” Her voice comes hard and fast.

 

“Rory–”

 

“I am now… or I was… I don’t–” she stops abruptly, pauses and then, “I don’t know.”

 

Jess’s fingers slip into the pocket of his jeans, tracing the outline of his cigarette carton. He almost forgets to breathe. “If it’s not what you want then maybe you should come back.”

 

“I never said it’s not what I want.”  

 

Jess closes his eyes. After, he will find himself haunted by this conversation, tucked inside the compartment of moments he’s gathered and labeled as too difficult to venture into again. For a second he prays to God or something that he’s never really believed in, suddenly so _tired_.

 

“Rory,” he says her name again, as if needing something from her but not knowing how to ask her for it. “What do you want me to say?”

 

He waits a long time for an answer, hoping it will come.

 

It never does.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

The week leading up to Luke and Lorelai’s wedding, Jess comes into town. He’s not entirely certain how he can be of use to Luke so he assigns himself to diner duty, spending the majority of his time waiting tables, manning the register and generally keeping himself occupied to avoid drawing unnecessary attention. He decides that he owes Luke that much.

 

After all, there is life after being branded the _town hoodlum_ (it’s what he’s been telling himself all these years anyway). But, of course, everyone in Stars Hollow is watching. The feel of their looks is as familiar to him as the taste of cigarettes in the back of his mouth.

 

Luke, never one to willingly engage in the intricacies or nuances of any formal gathering, remains largely restrained in involving himself with the wedding plans. It’s why Jess sees much more of Lorelai at the diner than he expects, asking for Luke’s opinion on the centrepieces, the colour of the tablecloths, and what bouquet of flowers she should hold when she walks down the aisle. Jess exchanges pleasantries when needed. He’s still not sure how to approach Lorelai and from the look of it, the same could be said of her about him.

 

He doesn’t see Rory until his third night.

 

She stumbles into the diner twenty minutes before closing, a long bridesmaid dress encased in plastic in her arms.

 

“Hey,” Jess manages. He hasn’t seen or spoken to her since she came to see him in Philadelphia a few years back, and can’t imagine what she could be thinking in that very moment.

 

“Hi,” she says out of breath, careful, before gesturing to the last of the coffee behind the counter. “Can I get in on some of that?”

 

“Sure,” He nods, pouring her a cup.

 

Rory doesn’t say anything else for a while as she sips from her cup and reads an article from the Times she had pulled out of her bag. Jess slips away to lock the back door. When he returns, she is gone.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Rory starts coming into the diner more often in between organizing preparations for the wedding.  Sometimes she’s on the phone (Jess is not nearly crazy enough to enforce any of Luke’s ban), other times she’s sitting at one of the corner tables, reading from a worn book.

 

“Did you read King’s latest?” He asks, filling her cup with the last of the day’s coffee.

 

“Some of it, yeah.”

 

“Do you like it?”

 

“I couldn’t finish it,” Rory admits, taking a long gulp. “Not by choice. One of Lane’s boys threw up all over it. I think she fed him too much candy and I’m just… having a hard time getting back into it. New copy and all, of course.”

 

“I knew you’d hate it,” Jess quips, wiping down the table next to hers.

 

“I didn’t say I hated it!” she exclaims before pausing to observe his face. Jess can’t help but stare back. “Wait, do you think I’m lying?”

 

“Not at all,” he answers, rolling his eyes.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Later:

 

“ _Lane had a boy_?”

 

“Two. Twins in fact.”

 

“Wow,” Jess says.

 

A pause.

 

He thinks he might want to ask her a hundred questions. He wants to ask and ask, but can’t form words around the sudden lump inside his throat. Instead he asks, “So what did you do after the campaign?”

 

“I was working as a contributor for the Post in Washington for a while.”

 

“You still there?”

 

“Not really,” Rory answers, “It’s not exactly the best climate for young journalists these days unless they want to write quizzes for Buzzfeed.”

 

Jess senses something in her voice and doesn’t press further.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

At the rehearsal dinner he tells Rory about the latest developments at Truncheon, about Chris and Matt. He even mentions the second novel he’s been trying to write but can’t seem to find the words to sit down and start. There’s a certain tension in Rory’s shoulders that evening. Jess can’t figure it out. He thinks maybe he’s been gazing at her too long trying to find an answer because she suddenly starts staring at him over her glass of champagne while fielding questions about her life from the other guests.

 

Jess gulps down his own drink, finding it excruciatingly hard to look away.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

On the morning of the wedding Jess wakes up before sunrise to begin packing for his evening flight back to Philadelphia. When he finishes, the sun has just come up from behind the horizon, lighting up the town. Jess grabs the first book he can reach in his bag ( _Resurrection_ – it’s his third go at it) and heads to the bridge overlooking the pond. He’s just about to open the last page he was on, his thumb brushing the bookmark in anticipation, when he hears footsteps creaking on the old wood.

 

“Lane moved to L.A.,” Rory says, standing next to him.

 

“What?” Surprised to find her out here so early and on the morning of her mother’s wedding.

 

“Lane moved to L.A.,” she says again, sitting down, “Got a job working for a producer at a record company. She even found a new band and plays evening shows with them. It’s why she couldn’t come to the wedding.”

 

Jess remains quiet.

 

“She deserves it. I’m proud of her.”

 

He hesitates to ask, “But?”

 

“I just never thought, even though I’ve learned not to, that I’d be the last one not to have things figured out,” Rory says finally, staring down into the water. “Lane, you, mom, Luke, even _Kirk_.”

 

“Rory–”

 

“It’s weird not being caught up with everyone else,” she says, turning to look at him.

 

Jess can feel his jaw tense at her words. He spent so many years fighting to get away from everyone that at some point it just became so easy, so second nature to him. The fact that Rory’s worked hard to avoid that and still struggles with it, he feels at a loss of what to say to make her feel better. Something inside of Jess burns and tastes like all the other things still wrong with him.

 

(There’s another part of him that remembers the last time he tried to help her, too, and how it all blew up in his face later.)

 

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, “Kind of feeling like always being left behind.”

 

Rory bites her bottom lip. They are quiet for a long time and Jess wonders if Rory wants to take all her words back, if she feels like she has bared more than she should have. Then he wonders if it is him who has shared too much.  

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

At the ceremony, when he’s wearing the most expensive suit he has ever owned and standing behind Luke as he recites his vows, Jess catches Rory’s wandering eyes from behind Lorelai and this time holds them with a lot less effort than the previous night. He’s so taken aback by how beautiful she really is that Jess momentarily slips, allowing himself to remember _all_ Rory is, all the things she represents to him, and all the things he doesn’t know how to say (or ever really did). When Luke leans over and kisses Lorelai, Jess remembers what it was like to have Rory’s lips smooth and warm under his, hands tangling in his jacket, in his hair, fumbling for the strength of his back and shoulders, or curling around his neck, rising up to meet his mouth.  

 

“Come dance with me,” she says sometime later, approaching him at the bar just as he sips his drink. Most of the guests have already left the reception and for a split second he wonders if she was waiting for the town to disappear before asking him. To make the request more amenable.

 

“You sure?” Jess looks at her for a beat, shoving his hands into the pocket of his slacks.

 

Rory grins but her eyes are unreadable, reflecting a hundred different thoughts and expressions. “You owe me.”

 

He can feel the soft cushion of her palm where his thumb presses as he holds her hand to his chest; his other hand half-clutches the fabric of her dress at her waist. Jess’s pulse quickens slightly as their feet keep pace with the soft British rock music. Up close he can follow the lines and freckles on Rory’s face. Her breath sweeps the underside of his jaw and it’s the last time Jess willingly allows his sight to flick to her mouth. It’s fitting somehow that this is happening here, at Luke’s wedding, after all this time.

 

“Do you miss New York?” she questions him as the music shifts tempo, leaning closer so her face is almost in the crook of his neck. Jess’s pulse quickens.

 

“Yeah,” he says, because he does, in spite of how utterly shitty it was living with his mother, he had always imagined living in the city forever. “I do.”

 

“I miss New Haven, sometimes,” Rory admits quietly, “I miss Yale.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Rory nods, moving her head back a little to look at him directly.

 

“What I always liked about New York,” Jess starts, “There’s so many people and it’s so easy to get lost in, but if you could find a place in it and make it your own, it almost never felt that big at all.”

 

“I get that. I know it’s silly but at times it almost felt like Yale was the only place that was mine.”

 

Jess thinks about that time he came to her dorm room at the end of her first year. Telling her how much he loved her, loved her more than he should, more than he thought he could love anyone, and realizing moments later he could never, ever have her.

 

“Everything okay, Rory?”

 

Rory’s brow twitches. “Sure, yeah…” She smiles a little.

 

There’s that knot in Jess’s stomach again, like he’s not sure whether or not to believe her.

 

“I’m fine. I’m moving to London,” Rory says more firmly.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, my grandmother knows someone at BBC. I’m starting next month.”

 

“That’s really great, Rory. I’m happy for you.”

 

“Thanks,” She pauses, sniffing. “Will you visit me?”

 

“Are you sure you’ll have the time to show me the sights?”

 

Rory heaves an exaggerated sigh, “I suppose I could make it work,” she grins in that way that reminds Jess of all those times he thought she held the future in her hands. And like a recurring memory or a dream, he feels guilty, like an asshole, for constantly thinking about the _what ifs_ even after everything has been said and done.

 

“Do you want to go grab something to eat later?” Rory asks, her fingers curling tighter into his dress shirt.

 

They are so close now and when Jess looks at her, Rory is staring so intensely at him, eyes slightly narrowed and teeth biting into her lip, pulling closer. He can feel the muscle in his jaw jump wildly because it’s almost as if she’s going to–

 

“I can’t. Need to pick up my stuff from Luke’s. My flight home is at six,” he tells her, turning his head away, feeling the air around him crush his lungs.

 

_He can’t do this again._

 

When he wills himself to look back at her, Rory’s face is expressionless and steady.

 

He doesn’t know what that means.

 

“Okay.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

He says goodbye to the newlyweds before Rory walks with him to the diner and calls an cab while he changes out of his suit, gathering his belongings from the apartment upstairs. Jess’s hands itch for the cigarettes lying at the bottom of his duffel bag but he pushes the craving away.

 

When the car comes around to the diner’s front door, Rory leans into him just a little, just enough for him to reach out and wrap his arms around her shoulders. And when she presses her face to his neck, Jess tries not to think about how this could be the last time he ever sees her, how he has never really stopped missing her and how he never might.

 

When he pulls back, he’s got his lips near cheek, voice low. “You let me know if you need anything, alright?” Jess swallows hard, pulling away. “I know we haven’t talked in a while, but… if you need cheering up, I’m only six hours behind you.”

 

Rory nods, exhaling loudly, “Bye Jess.”

 

“Bye, Rory.”

 

He watches her for far too long from the back of the car, until Rory is just a tiny spot at the end of the street.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

It’s never the right time. They’ll always keep missing each other.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Years later Jess will distinctly remember the way Rory smelled – a mixture of perfume and something he won’t be able to recall until much, much later.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Rory stays in London after leaving the BBC. There is no real need for her to leave right away or go anywhere else. It helps that she gained access to her great grandmother’s trust on her last birthday. But really, there’s a big part of Rory that doesn’t want to have to deal with her grandmother if she were to go back to Connecticut, doesn’t want to fight or argue with her in the cold of her house after her grandfather’s death, or feel the weight of her falling short of expectations again.

 

“I don’t know where to start,” she says to herself, pressing her knuckles to her eyes in the quiet of her West End apartment.

 

This is not an admission.

 

There’s something like release pooling at the bottom of her spine when she runs into Logan in the South Bank one evening. He looks the same, feels the same when she goes to wrap herself around him (a little too tightly). They go out for drinks. He tells her about the venture capital firm he’s working for in California. How different the state is from the East coast.

 

 _Did you find what you were looking for?_ He asks at one point, his breath hot against her ear as he helps her into her raincoat.

 

 _Yes_ , she replies, uncertain why the lie forms so easily in the back of her throat.  

 

 _Do you still love me?_ He whispers next, desperate, looking at her like she’s still the only person he loves, like he can still offer her the world and anything else she wants. Maybe, she thinks, maybe they were never supposed to be apart after all.

 

 _…I could still love you_ , Rory answers in an equally desperate tone, her tongue slick.

 

(It’s not untrue.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Her grandmother forgets all about the job she had lined up for her when she comes home with Logan and a brand new diamond ring on her hand. Her own mother stares at her nonplussed. The Friday evening dinner is a flurry of wedding plans, the discussion mainly dominated by her grandmother and Logan.

 

Afterwards:

 

“Rory, how did this happen?”

 

“I loved Logan for a long time, mom,” she chides, shielding herself against her accusatory tone, “You know that.”

 

“But what about the BBC?”

 

“It didn’t work out.”

 

“Why?”

 

Rory sighs, “I don’t know. I want to tell you but I can’t. I don’t know what it is I need right now but I need him,” and then she snaps, “Just because it took you years and years to figure out who it was you were supposed to be married to doesn’t mean that standard applies to everyone else.”

 

Lorelai expression hardens, her nostrils flaring. “Rory, I don’t–”

 

“I’m sorry,” Rory backpedals, not sure where her burst of anger came from. “Please lets just… drop this. I don’t want to fight with you, mom.”

 

“Fine,” Lorelai retorts, “Oh, and by the way, I married your _father_ before Luke, and guess what? It didn’t take me _years and years_ to think that I needed him either.”

 

Her mother storms out of the room and Rory thinks of how easy it could be to place some of the blame she’s been carrying around about all sort of things onto her shoulders, to say _, I don’t think I know how to be in love with anybody or know where to go from here because you never taught me how_ , before immediately feeling the guilt coil hot inside of her in response.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Jess is twenty-five when he hears about Rory getting married through Luke, having not spoken to her since that night she called from London.

 

(That’s a lie. Rory calls the day before, what he later realizes is, her wedding. He sits at his desk at Truncheon and listens to her faint breathing. He wonders if this is what it was like for Rory during those times he called from California leading up to her graduation – hearing nothing more than the sound of his breath and not knowing where he was or if he was alright.

 

In the end, nothing is said.)

 

After her wedding Rory does not write or call. It is the sort of silence from people Jess has grown accustomed to all his life and because of it he immediately recognizes the enormous feeling that washes over him.  

 

_Relief._

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(“I’m stuck,” Rory says into her phone, finally, but the line has already been disconnected.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Rory moves to Los Angeles after the wedding.

 

She meets up with Lane a few times and watches her perform at some of her shows. Watches how happy Lane looks from across the crowds, sweat plastering her dark hair to her neck and face. Logan comes only once, can’t seem to find time to do it more often. Rory brushes it off, thinks of how good it is that she has this one thing to herself. 

 

During the day she walks through the city, inhales the smog and listens to the traffic radio. Sometimes she reads, other times she writes articles that appear in newspapers halfway across the country. And sometimes she browses job postings and university admissions websites, thinking of all the things she could be doing but doesn’t know how to take those big steps back, to erase everything she’s gone through to get to here.  Mostly she shops and gets ready to accompany Logan to his firm’s events and dinners. Rory tells herself, as she applies her mascara and lipstick, that she had expected this, had welcomed it. Logan is still a Huntzberger, still carries the weight of what that means. She always knew this is what it would be like with Logan, even the first time.

 

(Except last time she had dreams – which later nearly fell apart – and now she has nothing but him.)

 

It’s not exactly clear when thing begin to change so quick, when the first crack in the façade forms, when the string of pearls breaks and they scatter all across the floor. It deepens shortly after Logan points out why she smiles so different now, all thin and short, and why her touch is more sparse. Why she pulls away. _You could be doing anything, Ace._ Rory’s always been more perceptive than most adults gave her credit for, and she hears her rushed and whispered arguments with Logan as if she’s standing outside the room herself, feeling the tension and anger between the both of them now deep inside her open up.

 

Eventually, Rory unwillingly starts to make their anger _hers_ , the irritation driving her, controlling her. It makes her fingers curl into fists while she attends Logan’s parties, shirking the looks that remind her so much of her grandparents, and sometimes even her mother. _I’m a journalist_ , she says to them, biting back the bile that rises from her gut, letting the lie sink further inside her. Her anger stops coming out in whispers, voice raising and Logan’s elevating to match hers. When they finish fighting (about the furniture placement, about his ambivalence, about hers), Rory doesn’t think she ever fully rids herself of it either, just buries it as well, trying hard to ignore it, to forget it exists. Instead, she spends her time wondering where it stems from, how it never seems to fade. For the first time in her life, Rory suddenly has new found sympathy for her mother’s disastrous love life – another thing from her she has inherited.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

There’s a girl that’s been coming to Truncheon some weekends, browsing their selection and smoking cigarettes outside in the back alley. She invites Jess once, and he accepts, smiling widely.

 

He inhales the familiar tobacco, only hating himself a little bit. He’s been trying to quit on and off for a few years now, knows it’s a disgusting habit. Jess also knows that cigarettes might not be as bad as the other ways he has hurt himself.

 

“What are you thinking about?” she asks. She’s from New York, he can tell by the slip of her accent. Jess considers telling her about the novel he’s been trying to write for what feels like centuries but shakes his head instead.

 

“Not much.”

 

“Really? You look pretty pensive… and strange.”

 

He faces her, waiting for a clarification. She simply shrugs, leaning against the brick wall behind her.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“Let’s have a baby,” Logan suggests towards the very end, his tone insistent and as desperate as that time they were in London.

 

Rory freezes and can’t believe he understands so little of her. “Logan, no, we can’t.”

 

The rejection is palpable on his face like a fresh wound, and then the anger, the fallout from all their time so lost with one another. “Rory, what have I done? I just don’t understand it. I’m giving you everything I can, everything you could possibly ask for,” he snaps, his hands shaking with the weight of his words, “Why did you even marry me?”

 

She’s nearly twenty-seven now, barely even moves when she says, “I don’t hate you. I thought I could be married to you but I can’t.” _I don’t think I ever could._

Logan buries his face in his hands, then runs them through his hair. He stares at her like she’s the most dysfunctional person he’s ever met, and it’s this look that breaks her heart most of all. “Did you even try?”

 

“I did the best I could. I’m sorry.”

 

It’s the first honest thing she says in a long time.

 

Of course, that’s the moment it all happens. It takes a mere couple of years for their marriage to fall apart completely. Rory watches in awe and fear as it does, tries not to look back but finds that when she does everything is kind of together, all hazy. She decides she prefers it that way. Prefers it because the hurt and failure that stems from it and tangles around her chest is easier to handle, easier to swallow when she can’t remember all the sordid details of what really went wrong with them, with _her_ (or the good memories that she let slip away).

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

The dissolution of her marriage with Logan is not sudden, happening in tiny quick successive moments, and part of Rory wants to believe it could have been entirely avoidable if she were just a little more different ( _more patient, more honest, more loving, better_ ).

 

But, in the end, Rory goes much more quickly.

 

(Always attempting to put the men in her life and the frustration they bring _behind me, behind me_.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Except:

 

“You can stay here longer if you want, Rory,” Lane offers, hand on her guest bedroom door jamb. “I know going home right now might be the last thing you want to do.”

 

Rory rushes with her luggage all of a sudden, consumed by the feeling that she’s missed out on something big. There’s a fire somewhere inside her, threatening to engulf her whole. She can’t stay here; she can’t go home.

 

“I have to go,” she replies, catching her breath, “I don’t think I know any other way.”

 

Lane doesn’t say anything when she eyes the plane ticket on the dresser. She doesn’t have do.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“Hello?”

 

“Hey Jess, there’s someone here asking for you. Says her name is Rory?”

 

Jess can’t really feel himself get up and out of his apartment, or go down the stairs (because the elevator is always out of order) and out onto the corner of the curb. His fingers tremble as they search for a cigarette. Jess is so desperate for a smoke he feels like he can’t breathe. By the time he’s lit one up and shoved it in between his lips, inhaling, he’s already half-convinced himself that everything is ok, trying to put to rest the thousand different things Rory being here signifies.

 

When he enters Truncheon, Rory looks like she’s trying to hold herself up, something like exhaustion and nervousness brimming behind her wide eyes. She’s got a few bags lying by her feet, her arms crossed over her chest.

 

“Rory.”

 

“Hi, Jess.”

 

“What’s going on?” He asks, his heart sinking.

 

“I just need some time…” she trails, not really finishing her thought. “Could I come stay with you for a couple of days?”

 

Jess doesn’t push her for a better explanation. Doesn’t really think about what he is going to say in response until he hears, “Sure, yeah,” slips quickly from his mouth. Still eager for her when he should know better, like he can’t even help it.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

The thing about Rory is that she’s always been very good at creating elaborate lies. Hiding the guilt of being her mother’s teenage transgression, of sometimes having to be both parents her mother had abandoned, hiding the disappointment her father always caused her, hiding how she sometimes hates her grandparents and is scared of becoming them. Hiding the crushing weight of being too much of _Rory Gilmore_ and not enough of herself. She hides and buries all these things so deep no one would know they are as much part of her as the bones in her body.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

He helps her move her things into his small apartment.

 

“So, uh, Gilmore, eh? Decided not to change your last name?” It’s the absolute dumbest thing he can say right now, but it’s the only thing Jess has.

 

“Still a Gilmore,” Rory replies, “I never changed it. Not that it makes any difference.”

 

“What?”

 

“We’re divorced now.”

 

Yup, he’s basically mildly horrified but tries not to show it. Jess doesn’t know what to say next except, “I’m sorry, Rory.”

 

She does something that resembles a half-shrug and shoulder roll, turning away from him. “Yeah.”

 

“Are you hungry?” He asks, feeling that a change in topic is probably much more appropriate for now.

 

“Starving.”

 

“Ok, I’ll go get take out. Thai okay?”

 

“Sounds great,” she answers, “Do you mind if I take a shower while you’re out?”

 

“Sure, yeah. The clean towels are in the cupboard next to the sink.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“So,” Jess draws the word out as he gathers their dirty plates, “I’ll take the couch. You can sleep on my bed.”

 

“No, I don’t want to put you out any further,” Rory answers, standing up from the kitchen table with him, “I’ll take the couch. I insist, please.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Jess did not grow up whole.

 

He grew up with pieces.

 

Tiny rooms for a home. Attending classes on no consistent basis. Something resembling a father in Luke, something utterly different and barely there in his actual father, and only periods of sobriety from his mother.

 

As he lies in bed, he watches Rory’s shadow move across the sliver of space underneath his bedroom door. Almost there, but never within reach. The last time she came to the city, Jess had created all these expectations for himself, for her. He can’t put himself through that again so he tries his hardest not to expect anything at all.

 

( _He isn’t supposed to do this again_.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Rory sleeps for what feels like days. When she wakes up the following morning, her face turned to the back of Jess’s couch, it’s actually two in the afternoon. She sighs, pulling the blanket Jess had given her up to her chin and closing her eyes again. Leaving London and then L.A. had been easy, she thinks, because she’s done a bang-up job convincing herself that maybe, deep down, there hadn’t really been anything for her to leave. And on top of all that, somewhere in the middle, she had thought it would be a great idea to go someplace where…. where what? She could regroup? Avoid everyone? Rory remembers browsing flights and picking Philadelphia, not really knowing what to name as the final catalyst for her decision. Or refusing to name it.

 

She doesn’t even know anymore.

 

That’s probably why she just wanted to be somewhere she felt like she could sit down and catch her breath.

 

Rory eventually gets off the couch, brushes her teeth and eats some Frosted Flakes she finds in the kitchen. She spends the next hour snooping around Jess’s apartment, going through his closet, medicine cabinet, dresser, bookcases, taking careful mental notes of where everything is, making sure not to move his belongings. Everything is all over the place, just kind of out in the open, but there’s definitely some sort of system involved. Rory’s not really sure what she’s searching for, if anything, and it’s really not a great thing to be doing, but, Rory figures, after everything with Logan, her family, just running away and not really owning up to anything or making a genuine attempt at trying to fix things for herself yet, she hasn’t exactly been acting like a considerate person lately anyway. Maybe she just isn’t one anymore or ever really was.

 

Her mother calls later, asks her in a soft voice where she wants her to put all of her stuff Logan shipped from California.

 

“Anywhere is fine,” Rory says, “Thank you.” _I’m sorry_ , she almost says, too.

 

“Are you coming back? I think he thought you would. That’s probably why he sent everything across the country back here.”

 

Rory closes her eyes, pressing the hand not holding her phone hard against her face, almost muffling her own voice. “I don’t know yet.”

 

“Where are you? Are you safe?”

 

“I’m still at Lane’s,” she lies, still a little scared now by how easily it spills from her tongue.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“You’re up?” Is the first thing Jess says when he returns later in the afternoon. She’s only half sure that he’s joking.

 

“Well, I wasn’t going to sleep forever,” Rory responds, “Though, I guess if someone were to ask, sleeping forever would be pretty great way to go.”

 

Jess’s mouth twists upward. She watches him from the corner of her eye, head turning towards his TV, observing as he settles takeout bags onto his kitchen counter, tossing his keys into the corner. It’s amazing how her showing up, like they’re friends after all of this, after everything, seems like a normal occurrence to him.

 

After dinner, Jess disappears into his room and comes back with his laptop, turning down the apartment lights save for the one by the kitchen table. He settles into his chair again and opens the screen, his face instantly illuminated in white. Rory moves to the living room at the other end of the apartment, her eyelids heavy and sleep and something else she can’t place.

 

“Hope you don’t mind if I turn in early,” she says, tucking in the white bedsheet underneath the couch cushions, “I swear I’m never this tired.”

 

“Sure.”

 

“I _promise_.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he shakes his head, amused, “Let me know if you need anything.”

 

Rory freezes, her mind racing. She remembers those two abrupt phone calls she made to him after her mom’s wedding, so much has been left unsaid, but quickly pushes those memories away. When she settles into the couch for the second night, Rory hopes that her being here doesn’t remind Jess of everything that’s happened between them, and if it does, at least not the things that would keep her up at night.

 

“Goodnight,” she calls out lazily.

 

“Night, Gilmore.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Jess wakes up and goes about his morning as normally as he can. When he turns to close his front door, he catches one last glimpse of Rory, face down in her pillow on the couch, her back sinking and rising as she breathes soundlessly. He turns on his heel and goes to his bedroom dresser, pulling the spare key to his apartment out from where it’s taped to the back and setting it on his kitchen counter. He grabs a sticky note and scribbles down a note, thumbing it down on top of the key.

 

He spends the rest of his day pushing Rory into the back of his mind, just like he had yesterday. Instead, he focuses his attention on the new writer that comes in, filing the necessary paperwork, and once in a while wondering who knows that Rory is at his apartment. It’s a question, like so many others, that Jess has yet to figure out by asking her directly, but perhaps a part of him is trying hard to keep whatever is going on right now the way it is, trying to prevent the fragility that has always been between them ever since he left Stars Hollow, intact.

 

But maybe, while Jess is on a smoke break and he’s recounting whether there’s enough food in his fridge for Rory, or at lunch, wondering if he should run to the store and buy some more toiletries, he thinks about how alone Rory could have been when she made the decision to come see him, or what else could have spurred the wild look in her eye when he saw her standing in Truncheon with her bags at her feet.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

The first thing she sees entering the kitchen is the blue sticky note attached to a key on the counter.

 

_Vitamin D, important. Outside._

 

She presses her lips together, fighting off her bemusement at his ridiculous phrasing.

 

Rory takes the bus that runs across the city to the very edge of Philadelphia and works her way back to the apartment. She runs into bakeries and coffee shops that remind her of Luke’s. She stumbles upon a few quiet independent hotels and bites back the guilt curling inside her. She sees street musicians, dance studios, restaurants and hipster record stores. There’s a park with a long path running along its periphery and Rory imagines all the people visiting on a sunny day, thinks about coming back with books in her hands and an entire day to waste away in the plush grass. Philadelphia appears to be just like any other American city, bustling with people and all their stories.

 

(But none of them have Jess.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

When Rory returns to Jess’s apartment it’s nearly seven in the evening, the sun low in the sky. He’s already in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove top.

 

“Hi,” she says, entering through the front door. She stuffs the key he had given her into the front pocket of her jeans. “I brought you something.”

 

Rory shoves her hand into her plastic bag and pulls out a book, placing it carefully on the counter next to him. She had found it inside one of the bookstores on Market Street, her eyes immediately fixating on it when she saw it. 

 

“ _Tender Is the Night_ ,” Jess reads the cover aloud.

 

“It’s your favourite Fitzgerald, right?” Rory asks, maybe a little too eagerly.

 

“Yeah–”

 

“I mean, I figured you’d already have a dozen copies, but thought maybe you could use another one? Because you’ve probably drowned out all of poor Francis’s writing with your notes…” she trails off, unsure as to where she was ultimately going with her comment. Rory knew last night Jess was probably finding some sort of distraction from (or inspiration for) a new novel. She remembers waking up periodically those first couple hours after turning in to see him sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at his computer screen.

 

“Thank you,” he says, turning off the stove and turning to face her fully, “I suppose this means you didn’t spend your entire day sleeping on a park bench.”

 

“Please,” she scoffs, “Sleeping on a park bench would be a wholly welcomed experience when compared to sleeping here.”

 

Jess narrows his eyes. “How so?”

 

“How do you expect anyone to get any sleep in the morning with you stomping around all over the place?”

 

“That’s ridiculous,” he answers dryly.

 

“Wow, Jess. Could you have said that any more convincingly?”

 

Jess ignores her as he pulls out clean plates from the cupboard. Rory mouth quirks as she begins to walk away and then a laugh escapes her when she hears him mutter, _I do not stomp_ , under his breath.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

She had said a couple of days when she got here, and if Rory is anything, she tries hard to be true to her word. Maybe that hasn’t been working out so well lately, but it’s the Rory she has always tried to be, the Rory she is trying to get back to. So on the third morning she packs her things, browses for flights and settles for a late evening flight to JFK. She figures she can scope out a hotel in the city for a few days, try to collect her remaining thoughts and plan her next course of action from there.

 

When she’s done, she leaves her bags by the front door, locks up and decides to spend some of her last day at Truncheon. Rory goes because in that moment, it seems like the right thing to do. It’s the place that reconnected her with Jess, how it’s even possible that they are both in the same place again after all these years.  

 

She doesn’t go because she wants to see him, Rory tells herself. She knows she will have to say goodbye eventually, but thinks she can hold it off until later. In the meantime, she figures she can maybe stumble onto Jess, linger from the back, just out of sight, and watch him. Maybe he’s editing a manuscript or speaking with another writer. Just to confirm to herself that he’s okay.

 

It’s all Rory’s really hoped for.

 

Of course, Jess is not there when she arrives. It’s also not very subtle to ask an employee where he is. So, she decides, she’ll just maybe wait. It’s never difficult for her to get lost inside a book anyway. Rory goes up to one of the many bookshelves now lining up the walls. Out of habit she skims the spines, taking a rough count of the number of books, noting how the different colours and sizes come together, like the formation of a perfect puzzle.

 

She picks one, finds a comfortable seat by the window, and begins to read.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Three chapters later:

 

“…Rory?”

 

She looks up, blinks and then, “Hey, Matt right?”

 

“Yeah,” he nods, “Jess mentioned you were visiting. You guys should come out with us sometime. I imagine Jess is a pretty lousy host.”

 

Rory smiles a little. “That’s nice of you to offer. I’d really like to, but I’m leaving tonight.”        

 

“Maybe next time then,” Matt says, then looks down at his watch, “Jess should be back soon. Had a meeting this morning with a cover designer.”

 

“I look forward to it,” she replies, “And thanks. I hope you guys don’t mind me loitering like this.”

 

“We welcome anything that helps convince people this place isn’t a front, including members of the opposite sex looking like they genuinely enjoy being here and around a bunch of weird guys.”

 

“Well, anything else I can do to help, let me know.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Jess comments, walking in through the front door. He stops next to her, peering down at her and the book in her hands. “Were you waiting for me?”

 

Rory looks up at him, closing the cover, leaning back into the chair. “And why would you think that?”

 

“Well,” he says, hands in his pockets, “Matt and Chris are great people but they’re not really your type.”

 

She stands, putting the book down on the table in front of her. “Are you trying to be funny? Because I’d rather you don’t. I haven’t had enough coffee to pretend you’re funny.”

 

“Why would I waste a perfectly good joke?” Jess points out, walking them over and out the front door, “You have a terrible sense of humour.”

 

“Do you feel better when you tell yourself that?”

 

“When did you become so mean?”

 

The wind picks up for a moment, and Rory struggles a little to get her hair out of her eyes. “Mean to you, perhaps. Though I’m definitely more at ease, yes.” She picks up her pace to match his.

 

They end up grabbing a table at the bistro a few blocks south. It’s a little too early for the lunch rush and Rory welcomes the idea of sitting and eating outside. Rory closes her eyes for a moment after placing her order with the waiter, relishing in the sounds of the city around them. Then takes a long breath and lets it go.

 

“I’m flying out tonight,” she says a little too quickly, just sort of blurts it out.

 

Jess glances away, then looks at her again, eyes a little wide. “Oh. Where are you going to go?”

 

“New York,” Rory answers. She tries looking just over his shoulder, but doesn’t really see much of anything at all so her eyes drag back to his. “Thanks for letting me crash for a bit. I know it wasn’t long but… it was wrong for me to just show up and presume you would let me do it, that you could do it.”

 

It finals dawns on her why she was rummaging through Jess’ apartment the first day so thoroughly. She had been trying to find signs of another life.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” says Jess, catching her gaze, “We’re friends, right? We’re supposed to do these sorts of things.”

 

Rory takes a long sip of water from her glass.

 

“Can I just...” He stops, unsure.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Why did you come _here_ , Rory?” Jess asks, sighing, “I mean, you could have gone to your mom’s or checked into a hotel somewhere.”

 

The waiter comes by with their orders then, putting their conversation on a much needed hold. But even after the waiter leaves, Rory’s quiet, uncertain as what she can say. She knows she should say something, should have probably said it the moment she showed up here. It’s selfish to keep the answer to herself, but it’s also probably selfish to tell him. The feeling of being so utterly absent, Rory doesn’t want to bring Jess into it. Not after what they’ve both been through, not after _everything_.

 

Jess watches her, hasn’t even touched his food.

 

It seems like he’s always waiting for her.

 

“I’m a little… little lost. Haven’t really been working since London, just a few contributing articles here and there while I was in L.A. and… I just wanted to feel like I could get on a plane and go anywhere and not have to think or pretend that I am… at least for a little while.” Rory waits for the impending level of culpability she doesn’t know how to handle and is so sure will come, but it doesn’t. So she pushes on, just a little more. “And I thought maybe that I could start to get some of that here. Like you said, we’re friends.”

 

She smiles weakly at him then. All Rory thinks about now is the girl Jess had seen her as, and the person she is now. About just how clueless she has been. It makes no sense, really. Any of it. She does know that there are things she wants to tell him right then and there. Burdens Rory wants to share so the weight of them won't feel as heavy or odd anymore. She wants to tell him things and demand answers from him, but knows the questions and truths would give away too much, make them too vulnerable to each other all over again.

 

Jess doesn’t immediately say anything, and a silence settles over them. Slowly they begin to eat their lunches as the rest of the tables in front of bistro begin to fill with customers. There’s so much nervous energy radiating off from her Rory doesn’t know what to do with it and she’s already thinking of the hundred possibilities where the rest of this conversation can go.

 

“Ok, now that I’ve had some time to think this over,” Jess drawls, “I just want to say that I’m glad you didn’t come all the way out here because you had just murdered your ex-husband and were looking to frame someone, mainly me. Or worse, that you needed help burying the body. Cause I can’t handle that. Not even for you, Rory.”

 

Rory exhales loudly, thankful for something but not sure what that is exactly in this moment. “Nope, no dead bodies.” Her voice cracks embarrassingly around the edges. “At least none from my end. Not sure who you’ve been associating with all these years and what’s happened to them.”

 

“Big mistake, Gilmore,” he replies, joking, his voice dropping impossibly low. “ _You’ve asked too many questions now_.”

 

She shakes her head, eyebrows drawn together. They finish their lunches and pay their bill, walking back in the direction towards Truncheon. At the second red light, right on the edge of the intersection, Jess turns to her, his hand reaching out to brush against her elbow.

 

“Rory, if you want to take a few more days,” he says, “Just to consider what you want to do, or how you feel, or what you think you want to do, you can stay here.”

 

“Jess, really?”

 

He nods, just once.

 

“But I wasn’t supposed to be here longer than a couple of days.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I already booked my flight.”

 

“I know.”

 

“But–”

 

“Rory, _I know_ ,” Jess smirks, and once again, tugs her across that invisible line she tries to maintain for herself.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(She stays.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“Last time you were here, I never got the chance to show you the city,” Jess says over breakfast the following Saturday morning, sunglasses tucked into his shirt pocket.

 

“Where are we going?” she asks, eyes lighting up.

 

They spend the weekend exploring Philadelphia in the summer heat. He takes her to the Museum of Art where they stare at galleries with all sorts of paintings they don’t understand. They go to Independence Hall and try to see something of historical importance while being pushed and squeezed between the throngs of sightseers. At the Rocky Statue they have even less luck at avoiding crowds. Rory doesn’t seem to mind it much though. She still laughs at attempting to get him to take a picture of her, imitating Rocky’s pose while he gets knocked around by distracted tourists, cigarette nearly falling from his mouth.

 

At one point they are so exhausted, sweat soaking through their shirts from the humidity, they end up joining a sightseeing tour, sitting on the upper level of the bus. It’s almost unbearable the intensity that the sun beats down on them and people aren’t even trying to contain their voices to properly listen to the guide speak over the sound system. Jess can’t help but glare from behind his sunglasses. It’s so unbelievably hot. But Rory leans her shoulder a little against him, just kind of taking it all in, the warm breeze sometimes blowing wisps of her hair into the side of Jess’s face.

 

Maybe the entire experience reminds him of that time Rory got on the bus to come see him in New York. Maybe that’s why Jess eventually steers her away from the busy areas of the city and takes Rory to that place on 21st Street he once bought a great milkshake, and the weekend market that’s only open during the summer, and the really hipster basement bakery that only does catering but sells all its extra food with dark roast coffee.

 

(Jess’s throat tightens only slightly when Rory smiles at him.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“That tour bus was absolutely juvenile,” he comments when they return to the apartment.

 

“It could have been worse,” Rory points out, “We could have gone to the zoo. I think you would have had a much harder time coping at the zoo.”

 

“Nonsense, I love all the little animals,” Jess drawls, toeing off his shoes.  

 

“I was referring to all the _humans_ , irrespective of size, you would have had very public altercations with.”

 

“Still think that about me?”

 

Rory whirls around, her eyes a little wide, apologetic perhaps. But then she sees his barely contained laughter, pushing from behind his mouth, and narrows her eyes, hands on her hips. “Well you’re not exactly helping your case.”

 

“And what would you have me do?” He asks her, pulling the edge of his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Prepare a public apology? Rent a tux? Practice my bow?”

 

“It’s a start,” she lifts her chin, lips pursued.

 

Jess tilts his head a little at her as he moves to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. It’s the first time since Rory decided not to go to New York that he is really considered what that means. Rory needs something from this place, maybe she needs something from him. Jess knows that, though he is uncertain as to how much.

 

A part of him wonders if he might need something from her in return.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

He comes home the next evening to a plastic bag from the pharmacy around the corner on the kitchen counter. Rory’s sitting on the couch with her computer on her lap, watching him from the corner of her eye but refusing to look at him directly as Jess looks through the bag. Inside there are three different brands of nicotine patches and gum.

 

Jess looks up at Rory, now typing mindlessly away on her keyboard.

 

 _Ok then_ , he thinks, scrunching the plastic bag with all its contents and shoving it into the cupboard above the sink.

 

The next day at work Jess finds individual nicotine patches tucked carefully inside his wallet, right between his license and Amex card, and another few behind the wrinkled twenty-dollar bill. There are another four stuffed in his cigarette carton, and a whole pack of gum wedged where the bookmark in the latest novel he’s reading is located.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(Another thing Rory never tells Logan, or anyone else while she is married to him, is the dream she had about Jess that one time.

 

She’s back at Truncheon’s open house after everyone has left, and Jess kisses her the same, except this time his hands are in her hair, in her blazer, eventually inside of _her_. Jess looks at her the way he does, like he knows her, knows things about her that Rory doesn’t even know herself.  

 

In her dream, Rory keeps kissing his crooked mouth and doesn’t pull away. When Jess asks her to stay, she does. She graduates Yale. She goes on the campaign trail. She comes back. They drink expensive scotch at her grandmother’s house while Jess wears that sweater she got him for Christmas only because he knows it makes her happy.

 

Ten, twenty, thirty years. Jess is still there, still everything.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(She had woken up shivering, her pillow a little wet.

 

Logan was still asleep.)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“You know there’s supposed to be a system with how to take these?” He asks her later, chewing one of the nicotine gum pieces Rory had left unwrapped on top of the manuscript he had been looking at earlier. “I’ve tried it before. It induces a lot of misery.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replies from the kitchen sink, drying her hands after washing their dinner plates. Jess raises his eyebrows at her. “I’m not particularly well versed in anti-nicotine therapies but, if I were the type of person to leave someone a bunch of nicotine patches and gum, I hope they would notice that I chose to carefully leave out e-cigarettes because they are _absurd_.”

 

“I had no idea you felt this strongly about vaping. You know Chris’s brother is pretty into it? Maybe I should ask him–”

 

“I will never speak to you again if you start vaping.”

 

“But–”

 

“Shut your mouth and chew your gum, Jess.”

 

“One can’t technically chew if one’s mouth is–”

 

She glares at him.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Jess sits in front of his computer on the kitchen table again, fingers poised over his keyboard, staring at the screen. He taps away lightly, stops and then presses down on a single key, backtracking. It’s a sight Rory’s seen several times, and she waits patiently for something to click, something to change so that she can look back and find Jess typing and typing, pouring words out, the concentrated look that seems to be permanently etched on his brow moving down to consume the rest of him.

 

“Hey,” she says, coming to sit across from him at the table when she notices him exit out of his writing screen.

 

“Hi,” he replies, eyes flicking up to look at her.  

 

“Sorry, were you still…?”

 

“No,” Jess sighs, closing his laptop screen. He gets up from the chair, “Want a beer?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Jess retrieves a couple of bottles from the fridge, goes to one of the kitchen drawers to pull out a bottle opener and then returns to the table.

 

“How far along are you?”  She asks, accepting the bottle he hands her after opening it.

 

“Not far at all,” he answers, taking the seat from across her again. “I left it for almost a year, decided to focus on my publishing job instead. I always thought I’d come back to it when I could get a better grasp on how to write what I want to write. That… well hasn’t happened yet.”

 

“Jess, if you ever want to bounce some ideas off me, I wouldn’t totally be opposed to it,” Rory says, leaning forward on her elbows. Jess smiles at her as he takes a swig of his beer. “I’m sure you’ve gotten other offers of help but at least in my case it’d be the least I could do. And, being a fan, I can get a sneak peak. It’s win-win for both of us, really.”

 

“Thanks,” Jess gulps, “I’ll let you know.”

 

He relaxes into his chair, now staring at her fixedly as if working under a dare. Rory tries to imagine what he sees when she looks at her, if she looks even a little like him, worked and tired. She wonders how well he’s sleeping.

 

“You know, everything you said applies from me to you too.”

 

“What?”

 

“Wow,” Jess runs his hands through his hair and then drags them down over his face, “No wonder I’m having such a hard time writing. Nothing I’m saying lately makes any sense.”

 

“Does anything you ever say or do make sense?”

 

“Probably not.”

 

“I think it’s just the beer,” she smiles, “You’re probably such a lightweight.”

 

“I _very much_ doubt that,” Jess snickers.

 

“I’m not so sure about that.”

 

Jess shakes head. “What I meant to say was that, if you’re unsure about something you can tell me. Or if want to talk about something that, maybe, you don’t know how to talk about, you can try talking about it with me. Just as practice. If you’d like.”

 

The apartment is quiet then, the silence only marred by a honking car passing by outside. Rory feels the way her hand slips against the condensation around the beer bottle. She sits for a moment and looks at Jess, considering what he’s said, and he sits and stares back at her.

 

“Do you find this a little strange?”

 

“If you’re referring to yourself,” he jokes, “You could actually be talking about a whole lot of things.”

 

Rory exhales, “I get the feeling that you’ve seen me like this a lot more than you should.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“When I’m just… sort of lost and don’t really know why I’m doing the things I am.”

 

It isn't hard to believe that she's grown up thinking that life changes itself for the better, somehow and continuously. That it is about taking opportunities present at every corner. But it _is_ hard to admit how easily she’s fallen back into this cloud of self-doubt and aimlessness that first began at Yale. But this time is different. When London fell through and Rory thought she could get some part of her previous self back through Logan, it turned out not being just about having no clue what to do or where she'll go next, but being caught up in thinking that perhaps she's not going anywhere anymore.  That she’ll write contributing articles and wander around in the meantime for the rest of her life. That all that is going to happen in her life has already happened, and it’s fallen short of what everyone thought would happen, including everything she’s convinced herself it should be.

 

“It’s okay to be those things, Rory,” Jess says, face leaning into fist propped up by his elbow. “The important thing is to pick yourself up and get back on track. It doesn’t really have to matter what that ends up being.”

 

She’s silent for a long time. Just kind of sits facing him, cradling the bottle in between her hands. Thinks this is what he had to do and how well he did it. She bites her bottom lip.

 

“Everyone thought I was going to graduate Yale and become this great correspondent and save the world,” Rory blinks back something hot behind her eyes.

 

“I know,” he nods, “But you can still save the world, you know. Or work your way towards it, if you want, in whatever way you want. And it doesn’t have to be in the way everyone pictured, including me and even you.”

 

Rory pushes her hair behind her ears, then pulls it off the back of her neck. She feels very warm all of a sudden.

 

“Besides,” Jess starts again, “Everyone thought I was going to become a convict and probably escape prison just to come back and burn down Stars Hollow… except maybe you?”

 

A noise escapes from the back of her throat, and Rory decides to call it a chuckle. “The jury’s still out on that.”

 

“Well I guess it’s nice to know it’s not too late. For either of us.”

 

Jess’s mouth slants and she remembers all those years and lines drawn by the both of them, erased and then redrawn so easily again. It’s odd to Rory now, how their closeness has evolved in such close proximity, almost like she never had to adjust to have Jess near after years of nothing but space and distance and all the things she had to force herself to forget between them.

 

“When did this happen? That you started thinking you couldn’t do what you wanted?”

 

“I guess the first thing would be starting to question if maybe this isn’t what I wanted?” Rory answers, “I don’t know – how did you decide you wanted to become a writer and work in publishing?”

 

“I mean I was always writing, granted they were inconsequential notes in book margins, and analyzing what others wrote,” he answers, “I had to find a way to channel it all and hopefully make some money from it at the same time.”

 

“Well I always thought I was going to become a journalist. It was all I and everyone in my family, everyone in town, talked about. I’ve thought about it for so long I don’t even remember if it was me who thought of it first, or if it was someone else,” she admits, “But I mean I didn’t always consider it that way, you know?”

 

Jess says nothing. His silence at this point feels so foreign, and maybe that’s because she couldn’t get to this point with Logan without him immediately trying to fix everything. Everyone’s always trying to fix and force things and it’s been a while since she’s been in front of someone who can just _listen,_ at least for a little while.

 

“I thought about you,” Rory admits suddenly, her tongue heavy, “After you left to find your dad, even after that time you came to Yale. I wondered where you were and what you were doing. I’m glad you’re okay.”

 

Jess’s eyes soften. “Me too.”

 

Rory swallows, looking around the room. “This…I don’t even know what to say anymore. I used to be so smart. Always thought that was what gave me courage when I needed it.”

 

Her hands drop to the kitchen table, wringing them together. She had always thought, if anything else, that she knew her books and knew her bravery, too, but perhaps just not in the way she needs right now. Not in the way that helps her hold her breath, or helps her fight instead of endure. To be afraid of that sort of courage and emotion, and so afraid of herself because of it.

 

What is intelligence and courage, anyway? An illustrious job? An Ivy-league degree hanging on her wall? The pedigree behind her family name? Perhaps there's a different name to what Rory had, or perhaps it doesn't even have a name. Maybe what Jess has experienced doesn't have a name either. Maybe these things are what they are, and perhaps that's what Jess has been trying to tell her all along, in the only ways he knows how. That perhaps if Rory stops naming things, stops putting meaning to them, she can stop expecting them to be what she labelled them.

 

"Rory, you'll always be the smartest person I know, and courageous too," Jess says, “And after you’ve thought of some options of where to go next and seriously considered them, _I wouldn’t totally be opposed to_ , say, being a second pair of eyes to look over your famous pro-con lists.”

 

“Are you mocking my pro-con lists?”

 

“I would never.”

 

“I mean it,” Rory sighs, “They are very sacred.”

 

“Of course.”

 

They both rise from the table then to recycle their empty beer bottles, feeling the weight of their conversation settle and permeate around them. Rory pulls the sleeves of her shirt to her wrists and thinks about preparing to turn in for the rest of the night. She goes to the couch and begins tucking the bedsheet under the cushions, adjusting her pillows and laying out the blanket, a routine that now feels as familiar as the skin on the back of her hand.

 

When she’s done she sits down in the middle of the couch, leaning back and closing her eyes, just for a minute.

 

“Rory?”

 

She opens her eyes and blinks. He’s sitting on the coffee table in front of her, hands holding onto the edge of it on either side of him.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I forgot to tell you, but,” she hears Jess take a deep breath, “After I left, when I started getting things in order, a big part of it was because you made me want those things. Things I didn’t think I was supposed to have.”

 

“Jess,” Rory says, feeling her heart race. She thinks about all that she could say to him now. “I always hoped you would get these things, and whatever else you wanted. Even when… even after…” she pauses, “You deserve these things.”

 

“You deserve them, too.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“I missed you,” Jess says the next morning before heading to work, looking at her over his shoulder, hand on the front door handle.

 

Rory’s gaze snaps to his, startled. He says it like she might need to hear it and maybe a part of her does. “I missed you too, Jess.”

 

He stares at her for a beat, lips parting, before closing the door behind him.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Of course, by this point, a few extra days turns into a couple weeks and after that Rory kind of stops counting.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“So,” Jess shoves his hands into his front pockets, “Matt’s girlfriend wants to do a pub crawl for his birthday Saturday.”

 

“A pub crawl? What is she, twenty-one?”

 

“Twenty-three, I think?”

 

 Rory raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to go?”

 

“I’ll go if you go.”

 

“Maybe we should set an establishment limit for ourselves first?”

 

“ _Establishment limit_?”

 

“Yeah, so that neither of us gets embarrassingly drunk and makes it very difficult for the other to bring home,” Rory stops and then backtracks quickly, “I meant _here_ , not home. I mean not that this place isn’t a nice–”

 

“I know what you meant, Rory,” Jess says, then crosses his arms. “Is this reasoning really supposed to apply to me or you?”

 

“Obviously you,” she bites her lip, “Unless you were planning on getting _wild_ , in which case I suppose we can discard the rule. Just so I can say I was there that one time famous author Jess Mariano got wasted and did something so humiliating it nearly brought down his writing career.”

 

“Jesus, Rory,” A laugh escapes his chest, “You sure you don’t want to write my book for me? You’ve been spending all these years thinking of ways to get back at me, haven’t you?”

 

“Oh yes, Jess,” Rory rolls her eyes, “All I’ve been thinking about is the best way I can screw you over. Convincing you to let me stay here rent-free is just the beginning.” 

 

“You mean to say that I could have been collecting rent from you all this time?”

 

“It was never off the table.”

 

“Well I thought I wouldn’t bring it up, you know, I’m trying out this new thing where I’m nice to other people and am their constant source of joy.”

 

“And how’s that going for you?”

 

“Pretty well before you showed up, apparently.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(“…So that’s a yes to Matt’s birthday?”

 

Rory nods, “It’s a yes.”)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

On Saturday, after breakfast, they go out and find a gift for Matt. Jess suggests they get a watch, only because he’s been telling her how Matt lost the one he wears everyday and has been spending all week staring down at his empty wrist, forgetting it’s not there anymore. Afterwards they grab lunch in Queen Village, and then some coffee that nearly scalds the roof of his mouth.

 

“Hey, heard there’s a book sale this weekend on Morris and Ninth?” Rory pipes, removing the lid from her coffee cup and blowing over the surface of her drink.

 

“Books?” Jess says, smiling. He likes knowing Rory is comfortable finding her own way around the city, how things about this place he doesn’t know slowly open up for him through her.

 

“Yeah, those things your apartment is littered with?” She gestures, “Ring any bells?”

 

“Oh, those things.” There’s a pause and he swears Rory’s lips curve but it’s gone when he blinks. “You know, Rory, book sales in Philadelphia are the absolute worst places to go to.”

 

“How’s that?” she replies, turning the corner on the sidewalk with him as they make their way to his car.

 

“People turn into animals. Hiding the good ones, using bystanders as shields. I once saw someone get hit in the face with _War and Peace_ ,” He answers, “I’d be very scared to take you.”

 

“I can handle myself, thanks.”

 

“Not scared for _you_ , for everyone else in the store. Heavy books and a desperate Rory Gilmore doesn’t exactly sound like a safe and pleasant afternoon for anyone.”

 

Rory rolls her eyes. “You’re saying it like I would ever _overtly_ and _intentionally_ physically hurt someone to get what I want.”

 

“Wow, I thought you Chilton kids were supposed to polite and have great manners and stuff? Maybe I should come with you then, just to make sure you don’t _accidentally_ injure any civilians.”

 

“Please,” Rory says, “You’d pay to watch me get into an altercation with someone.”

 

“Well now I’m definitely not going – I don’t want to be the last person seen with Rory Gilmore before she started getting into fights with other people.”

 

They go to the sale anyway, of course. Rory moves ahead of him moving between the narrow aisles, her empty coffee cup pressed closely to her chest as she avoids bumping into people. Jess thinks about her then, watching after her right before she turns and goes behind the bookcase at the far end of the store. Thinks about all the ways they’ve changed, about whether or not those changes are enough for her. It’s the first time since the very beginning that he’s noting the way Rory looks, so much fuller than at Luke’s wedding. It’s only normal, Jess tells himself, that those things change too.

 

“Jess.” Rory comes up behind him, hand on back of his arm.

 

“Hey,” he says, pushing a book back into its place on the shelf in front of him.

 

“Here, can you take these?” she asks, already shoving her bag of purchases in his arms.

 

“Uhh, sure.”

 

“Thanks,” Rory smiles, pushing a piece of her hair back behind her ear. “I was thinking I would go and maybe buy something to wear tonight? Most of my clothes are someplace my mom put them and I feel like everything I have here at this point has the aesthetic equivalence of a paper bag.”

 

“Did you want me to pick you up afterwards?”

 

“No, that’s alright. I’ll meet you back at your apartment.”

 

Jess nods, shifting the weight of her books onto his other arm. “I’ll make us some dinner before we head out.”

 

Rory’s mouth twitches. “Great.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Rory decides on a champagne-coloured top and when she gets back to Jess’s place, slips it on along with her pair of dark jeans, putting her hair up in a high ponytail. Jess’s gaze meets hers as they eat their dinner, and she’s suddenly caught off guard by the thought of how he had agreed to _everything_ so easily.

 

At the first bar Jess introduces her as _Rory._ She meets some new people and smiles at faces she recognizes from Truncheon. Jess goes to order her a beer while some ask her what she does, and her answer comes a lot easier now, a lot more truthful. She tells them she’s in between jobs, taking time to think of where she will go next. When Jess returns they present Matt with their gift. Matt stares at them blankly before exhaling exasperatedly, pulling his sleeve back to reveal three watches already strapped to his wrist. Of course, everyone eggs him on to put theirs on so he does, downing the rest of his drink right after.

 

“You could definitely have coordinated that better with your co-workers,” She whispers to Jess.

 

“It was totally on purpose,” He whispers back.

 

“You didn’t tell me that!”

 

“’Course not,” Jess shakes his head, knee bumping against hers under the table, “You’d have the sense to talk me out of it and ruin it for everyone.”

 

Everyone drinks cheap whiskey at the college bar they head to next. There’s a television screen in every corner playing the Phillies game, and drunk frat boys hollering at nearly every table. Rory squeezes in close to Jess in the booth, can feel the warmth from his forearm next to hers on the table. She winces as the amber liquid burns all the way down her throat, and Jess nearly coughs up all over her, having drank his a little too fast.  

 

They go to a seedy dive bar after that and do three rounds of jager bombs. It’s much quieter than the previous place had been so naturally, by now, everyone is trading anecdotes about Matt from years past, offering up stories that at some point just become opportunities to roast him.

 

“Remind me never to spend my birthday with these people,” Jess says to her after one particularly embarrassingly recollection surfaces. Rory imagines if Matt wasn’t already so drunk no one would be laughing this hard.

 

“Why? I’d have _so_ many stories to share about you. Some of the most scandalous I’m sure.”

 

“Like?”

 

“The time you staged that crime scene in front of Dosee’s, or basically anything you ever did that nearly gave Taylor a heart attack,” she begins, pausing to sip the water she had gotten earlier to sober up, “Or when you…” Rory stops, biting her tongue, preferring not to let those memories reappear.

 

“When I…?” Jess asks, leaning closer. She can smell him now, all alcohol and soap and the mint from the nicotine gum he’d been chewing earlier.

 

“Umm,” she says, “Nothing.”

 

His forehead creases and his lips press into a thin, but he doesn’t push her.

 

As they’re walking to their next destination, Rory gets pulled aside by a couple of the other girls. They talk mainly about the time she spent living in London, and she welcomes the breeze hitting her backside on an otherwise warm summer night. Rory eyes Jess, who’s now walking a few feet ahead of her, talking with Chris, and she can’t help how her mind wanders and starts to think of the muscles in his back under his shirt.

 

At the fourth bar there’s a live band playing reggae, and Rory’s heart stops a little as she thinks of Lane. Somewhere in the back of her mind Rory makes a mental note to give her a call in the next couple of days. Rory finds herself waiting at the bar to get a drink far longer than she anticipated. She settles on a gin and tonic in one hand and a glass of water in the other, turning to go find where everyone is when she catches sight of him at the other end of the bar.

 

Rory stills.

 

Jess, eyes downcast and lips upturned into a devastating smirk, one hand on the edge of the bar counter with a woman pressed up to him, hair pushed over one shoulder, mouth close to his ear. It’s absolutely ridiculous the way Rory’s stomach churns, disbelief and something else curling inside her. It’s like she’s only just remembering that Jess is not hers.

 

Rory turns around, abandoning her glass of water as she sips from her drink. She goes to sit next to Matt’s girlfriend, talks to her about Stars Hollow, about Yale, about anything else she can think of to keep her mind and line of sight off of Jess. It’s the alcohol that’s making her feel this way, Rory says to herself, growing more restless as the night progresses.

 

“I’m going to go,” she says to Jess when he returns.

 

“What?” he replies, pulling her up from her chair and away from the crowded table. Rory grounds herself, trying not to stumble. But Jess’s fingers wrapped around her hand steadies her anyway, anchoring her to him as they walk. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

 

When Jess pulls her against him, Rory wonders if his head might be spinning like hers is under the warmth of the low bar lights, the gin swimming in her veins and the strum of the bass guitar. It might explain why they are suddenly swaying to a _Slim Smith_ cover, hands holding each others forearms, unsure.

 

“I was trying to say I’m going to head back soon.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Rory responds, feeling his touch everywhere, “Someone just mentioned going to a club next and unless I decide I want to fall asleep on a dancefloor, I don’t think I can handle that.”

 

“Okay, let–”

 

“You don’t have to come,” she says, unnecessarily, “You can go with everyone else or leave with some–”

 

“What?”

 

Rory glances away from him for a moment. “I just meant you can do whatever you want, Jess.”

 

Up close, Jess’s appearance hasn’t changed. Not really. Maybe sometime in the past few weeks she had noticed his scruff with more than a passing thought. And maybe any other time Rory could admit that Jess still looks _so good_ that it’s hardly fair. But for now it takes an incredible amount of effort not to acknowledge these things, to make them real.

 

Jess’s eyes are dark as they stare at her, unreadable.  

 

“I’m pretty tired, too,” he replies, dropping his arms to his sides. “It’s also just economical to share a cab.”

 

“Right,” Rory replies, stepping away from him.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

In the cab ride home:

 

“Hey…about earlier tonight,” she says, “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable or upset or…umm yeah.” She could be referring to multiple things really.

 

“It’s okay,” He shrugs, staring out the window on his side of the backseat.

 

They’re silent for a long time and for a moment Rory is struck with the urge to touch him. To reach out and brush the hair at his temple, or feel the curve of his jawline. She wants to tell him _sorry_ for something more explicit, but she can’t. She won’t.

 

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re hiding,” Jess says all of a sudden, turning to look at her.

 

“I’m not hiding.”

 

Jess presses his mouth into a thin line. “Fine. But that includes not _feeling_ like you are.”

 

“I’m not hiding,” she says again, less defensive this time, the practised tone disappears now as the scratchiness in her voice surfaces.

 

“Just making sure.”

 

Rory sighs, rubbing her eyes tiredly. She can feel Jess’s arm move closer and with the pad of his thumb he wipes away at an errant streak of smudged eyeliner from the corner of her eye. "Missed a spot," he murmurs.

 

He does not move his hand. Instead, he slides his fingers over the curve of her cheek, disappearing behind her jaw. Rory watches Jess as he watches her, and when he leans forward she closes the distance between them almost instantaneously. Their lips meet in a sloppy sort of way, her fingers bunched in his shirt and his palms coming to frame her face, stubble tickling the sides of her mouth. He tastes like beer and the summer heat, but most of all, like _Jess_. Just the way she remembers.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Sometimes, when she’s working on an assignment an associate from the Post has sent her, she considers what the work means to her. Rory remembers how exciting it used to be, continuously learning that the black and white perspective she grew up knowing could never be anything but blurred grey space. How these things challenged her, were so big that she got lost in them. Imagining things and then writing them to give them some force, to make the ghosts real. Now she wishes she could beg one of her formers editors to send her someone’s draft, to get lost in someone else’s grey and make her way through it and come out on the other side.

 

To know that she still can.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

They don’t talk about what happened in the cab.

 

In the fallout of that night, any time there is silence between them long enough for a conversation about the kiss to come up, Jess shies away, excusing himself to go do something or Rory drowns the quiet out, words forming in her mouth as she starts to ramble the way she does, about nothing and everything.

 

During meals they talk about Dostoyevsky and Brontë, about Kerouac and Faulkner. About the people that tie them together, that remain mutual in their lives. They talk about politics, of the changing music scene in Philadelphia. They talk about the impending demolition of one of the proposed historic buildings in Germantown. They talk about the ruin they know and sometimes they talk about their own.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“You don’t have to do that.” Jess points out as Rory returns from dumping their trash down the hallway chute.

 

“Of course I’m going to throw out the trash. Half of it is mine, after all,” she says, washing her hands. “Unless you meant to say that I’m incapable of doing it?”

 

“You said it, not me.”

 

“You do know I’ve been cleaning up while you’re out, right?” She turns around, hands on her hips. “This entire time. How else could you have thought your apartment is now much more liveable than before?”

 

“What makes you think I consider this place any cleaner now than when you weren’t here?”

 

Rory peers at him past the length of her nose, looking slightly annoyed but curious. Suddenly and all at once she is not the girl he used to know. In his mind, when he thinks of her then, Jess sees the face he knew and saw for months years ago. Before Rory graduated high school, before he left, and Jess searches for a reminder of these things in her face now as he watches her because she's so close and this angle feels familiar and it makes Jess hold tighter to something.

 

“None of what you’ve said so far even remotely sounds like a _Thank you, Rory_.”

 

“You want to know what I think?”

 

“Not particularly.”

 

“I don’t think you can go a day at being nice, or whatever your conceptualization of nice is, without secretly thinking you’re better than everyone else.”

 

“And I don’t think your ego can go a day without making someone feel bad for doing something normal like taking out the trash,” Rory replies breezily, making her way around the kitchen counter and into the living room. She pushes aside the blankets and sits down on the couch.

 

“My ego can’t be any bigger than yours,” Jess answers, coming to sit next to her as he turns on the TV.

 

“I thought you’d consider it a compliment. No one acts a certain way this much if it’s not true.”

 

“Is this you trying to be nice again?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Well, _thank you, Rory.”_

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

She starts eyeing the manuscripts and drafts Jess brings home more closely. At first Rory had merely scanned the papers, noting the circles and underlines and Jess’s notes protruding from the text. But sometime after she grabs them from the pile he leaves on the small desk by his bedroom door, tracing the writing with her eyes or the tip of her finger when Jess’s annotations are especially overwhelming, having engulfed the authors’ words.

 

She doesn’t mean to slip into Jess’s work, to claim this part of him he’s created for himself and work her way into it on purpose. Which is largely why she doesn’t add her own comments, even when she disagrees with his. It helps keep Rory’s mind occupied in those hours when she’s not working on an article or out exploring the city. It keeps her mind off a lot of things.

 

One Sunday morning she turns over on the couch and wakes up to a red pen sitting on top of a clean manuscript sitting the coffee table in front of her. Rory’s heart starts to beat intensely, suddenly taking up too much room inside of her chest.

 

“Thanks,” she says to him over coffee an hour later.

 

The corners of Jess’s eyes crease into faint lines and the angle of his mouth deepens in that way it does. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

Rory raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“So what’d you think?” He says, taking the papers back from her.

 

She’d been reading the draft all day, her thoughts swimming inside of her, etched into the crevices of today’s memory, threatening to burst past her mouth. She holds back.

 

“Oh, you’ll find that out soon enough,” Rory replies, eyeing the red marks scribbled across the front page in her handwriting. Her gaze snaps up to meet his, her smile small but steady.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

(“How did you think her protagonist’s feelings were anything but vague?”

 

“It was clearly a play at being deliberately obtuse and tantalizing,” Rory answers, rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses.  The afternoon sun bears down on them as they walk to the theater. “I’m glad we’re going to go see a movie. That way I don’t have to listen to your opinions for the next hour and a half.”

 

“My opinions are quite developed and astute,” Jess quips.

 

“Maybe even a little slanderous? I should have half a mind to go find this writer and advise her to find someone else to properly edit her manuscript.”

 

“And who would you have in mind?”

 

“Anyone but this _Jess Mariano_ fellow. Thinks he’s the real deal or something. I don’t think Philadelphia’s best should be interested in him.”

 

“Which means they _are_ interested in him?”

 

“Which means _they shouldn’t be_!”)

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Three drafts later and Jess looks at her inquisitively. “Your insights are pretty good. Better not let the other guys see this, otherwise I might be out of a job.”

 

Rory grins, pushing at his arm. She’s in one of those strange moods now where she’s not sure of several details at once. Things where she’s taking a step back and trying to reassess everything around her, like when you’ve been away from home for so long and are trying to familiarize yourself with where everything is. Rory considers what it is she’s still doing at Jess’s, if he’s still just another guy and she’s just any other girl, if all the things that have happened since she got here have really happened. If any of the things that happened before actually took place, too. And why she let them. Tonight Rory feels like she might be floating a few feet out of her skin, a strangeness she did not expect to overcome her so suddenly. She tries to explain it to Jess.

 

“Are you sick? Or…are you high?”

 

“Definitely not high,” Rory deadpans.

 

“You sure you didn’t get into the pot I keep under my bed?”

 

“You keep pot _under your bed_?” She recognizes the way the tone in her voice sounds scandalized.

 

Jess stares at her from across the kitchen over his laptop screen, amused and looking all sly. “Why, do you want some?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Rory answers, arms folding across her chest as she leans back on the counter. “How are you coming along?”

 

“It’s…happening. Things are happening.”

 

Jess’s mind, she has noticed, can still fold into itself. At times he’s silent and pensive, staring at his manuscripts or at his next book in progress. Like his thoughts have managed to catch up to him. Rory isn’t always sure what he’s thinking about and given who he is, she can’t begin to imagine understanding. Of course, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t try.

 

“Yeah, you good? Anything you want to fill me on?”

 

“I guess the more I think about it now the more I realize I haven’t really decided how I want to deal with it,” He answers, face vacant. “Or maybe I’m starting to change my mind about the whole thing but the rest of me hasn’t caught up to that decision yet, can’t accept it yet.”

 

Rory looks down at her feet and then back up at him. “Do you _want_ to change your mind about the whole thing?”

 

“If it’s what I have to do, then yeah. I think that’s the most plausible thing. Do you?”

 

She takes a deep breath and wonders exactly all Jess has had to go through in the time since senior year in Stars Hollow. Rory’s not really sure where to start and while she knows she has played a role in it ( _I couldn’t have done it without you_ ), has told Jess things that have meant something to him, and she wonders if she will be able to make someone feel that way again. Sometimes that even includes herself.

 

“I wish…” She clears her throat. “I don’t think everyone’s like you, Jess. I don’t think everyone can just change and fix everything by themselves.”

 

“I didn’t fix everything,” he answers, and Rory can’t help but stare at him in the ensuing silence.  
“What about you? You look like you want to talk about something… much more than usual.”

 

Rory huffs, blowing a wayward strand of hair off from her face.

 

“The last time,” She stops and then starts again, “The last time, at Yale, I let an old unrelenting man dictate how I should feel about myself, about not having what it took to be what I wanted. And I was terrified by it then. But I guess that was before I figured out there are a lot of other things to be more terrified of – like realizing, years later, that maybe he was right, or maybe that you are that old unrelenting man, that he was never this external thing, but something inside you all along and you’re not sure when that happened or why.”

 

Rory suddenly feels old and weakened beyond her years, feels heavy with the weight of time engulfing her chest and stretching her skin. Jess was a boy the last she'd seen him when she had dropped out of Yale, on the cusps of being everything he is now. Maybe after he confronted her a tiny bit of her was jealous and hardened by how much he had gotten his life together while she was behind on what seemed like _everything_. But Rory had known that Jess had to leave to figure things out himself – and maybe that’s the realization that had hit her the most – that she never really had things properly figured out really. Just had a destination appear and did what she thought she needed to do to get to it, never looking over her shoulder to check her blindspots, not realizing that she had to or that there were so many of them.

 

“When did you start feeling like that might be the case?” Jess asks her. He closes his laptop screen and comes into the kitchen, standing next to the fridge across from her.

 

“I think when my grandpa died a few years ago I kind of just started second-guessing everything. He loved his work and the company he worked for even though it slowly ate at him, this huge catalyst for the stress that caused those heart attacks and then his death,” Rory gulps, “His job literally killed him but he loved it, you know?”

 

Jess is silent and she feels her face grow warm. “It was difficult after his death knowing that he was always the one that understood my being a journalist in a way I don’t think anyone ever did. Mom wanted it because she wanted me to have a life that she thought was the complete opposite to hers, and grandma thought it _made_ me the complete opposite of mom, but grandpa always acted like it was neither of those things, that it might be something of my own and made me believe it… I guess the hardest part is knowing that he’s gone and that still isn’t enough for me to want to keep doing it.”

 

“That doesn’t make you any less of the person you were before.”

 

Rory nods, “I just… I feel so stuck sometimes waiting to move forward, It’s ridiculous, really. I shouldn’t have a problem, not with Yale or my grandmother prepared to work every connection she has but…”

 

She’s been feeding off validation for so many years and carrying all these expectations for so long Rory doesn’t know how to exist without them anymore. She wants to tell Jess this too but the way he looks at her, like he’s not concerned she didn’t turn out to be someone else, like he’s spent a good portion of his life questioning things over and over again, Rory figures he already knows.

 

“You always wanted to do things on your own.”

 

“Mostly, you could say,” Rory shakes her head. “ _Ideally_.”

 

“When I was at my dad’s in California and even when I moved out to New York after,” he begins, crossing his arms across his chest, mirroring her, “I was trying so hard to figure out what I wanted to do… what I was supposed to do. But the more jobs I kept working, and when I thought I was supposed to go back to school, the harder it got. And writing was just the one thing I kept doing throughout it, not really expecting anything from it… I guess what I’m trying to say is maybe you’ll still want to be a journalist. Or maybe you’ll publish something. Or become a morning talk-show host. Or an astronaut or a chef or bartender. Although you might not think so now, you’ll realize where you’re meant to go from here, even if you have to make the mistakes you think you will before you do.”

 

Rory stands very still in the place where she thinks she's stood so many times before, in front of Jess or somewhere with the memory of him around her, where she learned the sort of things only he could teach her – how it only takes a moment to be too late or for things to change irrevocably, for better or for worse, or how it’s okay to be lost and to fall, more than once, to make mistakes and for there to be hiccups along the way, more than once, and still be alright in the end, be great even. Her fingers curl tightly around the edge of the counter behind her and then release.

 

“I didn’t realize I might have needed to hear someone say that to me,” she admits. Rory is no longer surprised that this type of confession doesn't bring about the shame or guilt that would otherwise paralyze her. That had kept her silent in front of Logan, and her mother, kept her complacent to her grandmother’s offers and plans. Perhaps Rory doesn't feel this way because she’s in front of Jess now and he doesn’t make her feel as if there’s anything about her to be ashamed or guilty of.  “I screwed up a lot of things.”

 

Rory’s chest heaves and her shoulders drop. She’s suddenly hit by everything that she’s lost and how much time she has wasted. Rory buries her face in her hands as reality pulls her back in. She doesn’t know how to talk to her mother the way she used to or why she created such a mess in her marriage. There’s an itch that rises in her throat and gathers in her mouth, her knees tremble a little like they don’t know how to hold her up anymore. Rory has to force herself to calm down. When Jess hands her a glass of water she drinks from it greedily, swallowing back the gasp of air and tightness inside her chest as well.

 

“You’re a lot smarter than the rest of us, Gilmore,” Jess smirks, “I think you’ve just forgotten what that’s like.”

 

Rory flashes him a weak smile as she feels the hammering of her heart inside her chest. She wonders if Jess can sense it, utilizing all the time she’s spent here with him to tell her the things she couldn’t admit for herself or knew how to hear.

 

“Thanks for letting me stay here.”

 

Jess nods. “I’d be lying if I said I never crashed at someone’s place and didn’t need it.” He stops. “You’re important to me.”

 

Her heart jumps. “You’re important to me, too, Jess.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Jess sits at his kitchen table in front of his computer in the early morning hours, the sky outside a dark hue of blue, the silence in his apartment now palpable.

 

He pours out his thoughts, doing what he’s always done, what he’s always had to do.

 

Jess changes his nicotine patch and starts to write.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“You still into her?” Chris asks one time as they are locking up for the weekend.

 

Jess’s mouth twists before pressing into a thin line. “No,” he answers decisively, busying himself with the paper in his hands.

 

“Are you sure about that?”

 

He opens his mouth to reply but catches sight of Rory reaching for a book on a high shelf from the corner of his eye. Jess remembers the press of her mouth against his inside the back of the cab.

 

The lie quickly dies in his throat.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

Another thing Jess teaches her, maybe the most important lesson of all, is the strength that’s present inside everyone, and maybe even in herself.

 

The first thing Rory does is phone her mother and has to hold back the whimper in her throat from hearing her voice after so long. There's that apology on the tip of her tongue again but Rory still swallows it, spoiling her mouth with it, and figures she might need more time to work on this particular endeavour. Her mother has always been the hardest person to hurt and disappoint after all.  

 

Jess is writing in the kitchen again. He’s been at it more consistently in the past few days and Rory’ has avoided distracting him. Using the silence in the apartment to her advantage, to absorb it up into her skin and find that courage she’s needed.

 

Rory comes to sit across from his at the table again, opening her screen and finishing her most recent draft. For a while there’s nothing but the sound of their fingers pressing down on computer keys, faint but persistent and Rory’s not even sure how much time goes by before she glances up and Jess is looking at her.

 

She raises her eyebrows at him. “This is my last one.”

 

“Last article?”

 

“Yeah, for a while,” she folds her arms on the table, pushing herself up a bit. “Figured if I’m going to take a step forward I should probably stop spending so much time looking back.”

 

“Wise advice,” Jess smirks, closing his laptop screen. “I’m hungry, want to head out to get something to eat?”

 

“I’ve got a nine p.m. deadline,” Rory shakes her head. “Bring me back a slice of pizza, would you?”

 

“Way to make assumptions. I wasn’t planning on getting pizza… but I suppose I could find a pizzeria on my way back.”

 

“I’d be much obliged,” she smiles.

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

“I think we should paint your apartment,” Rory chimes the following Saturday morning.

 

“What?” He swallows the coffee in his mouth in one hard gulp, then turns to put his empty mug in the sink.

 

“Come on. I need to ease myself into turning over a new leaf or whatever you authors call it. I can’t just jump straight into it!” she exclaims, stepping too close to him in her excitement that he bumps into her when he turns back around.

 

“I think you can jump straight into anything just fine,” he comments, trying to sidestep her.

 

“Look I went to the hardware store and picked up some paint chips,” Rory retrieves them from her pursue, holding them up and spreading them out so they fan across her face, her eyes peeking out over the top. “Can we at least paint your living room? The paint doesn’t even need a primer, so everything will be done even quicker.”

 

“But I like the colour of my living room.”

 

“I suppose it’s alright if you were planning to open up a mortuary in there in case the whole publishing thing starts to bore you.”

 

“I’m pretty sure my lease says I need to get approval before painting,” he frowns.

 

“I already spoke to the owner.”

 

“How did you find them…?” He stops, nodding to himself, “That was a dumb question – I am talking to a seasoned journalist.”

 

“Old habit,” Rory shrugs, stepping closer with the chips again. “So…?”

 

“Rory—”

 

“How about periwinkle?”

 

“Rory—”

 

“Mint green?”

 

“I don’t—”

 

“Ooh what about daffodil? How do you feel about _daffodil_ , Jess?”

 

Jess groans, running his hand through his hair and realizing he isn’t going to convince her otherwise. Which is ridiculous since it’s _his_ name on the lease and she’s not even officially living here (he ignores how many days it’s actually been). “Fine, Rory. But I’m not painting.”

 

Rory stares at him with wide eyes, looking as if she’s thinking of what else to say to convince him to join her in this endeavour too, but decides against it. “Okay, but I need you to move out all the furniture and books.”

 

In the end they decide on a light blue and while Rory goes to the store to buy the supplies, Jess nearly sprains his back moving everything out of the living room. When she returns, Rory goes to open all the windows of the apartment and then lays tarp out all over the floor. Then she disappears into his room and comes out wearing one of the shirts he sleeps in. Jess can’t help but eye her unnecessarily and Rory is quick to respond. “I’m not getting paint on any of _my_ clothes.”

 

“Why _, of course_ , help yourself to my wardrobe while you’re already taking control of the rest of my apartment,” Jess chides.

 

Rory beams. “This is going to be great. I remember when my mom and I used to paint our rooms when we got bored of the colour.”

 

“That was _your_ shitty paint job in your room?”

 

“Hey!”

 

“I always figured you guys made Kirk do it but felt bad telling him what a terrible job he’d done.”

 

“You’re awfully unconcerned for someone who thinks I’m going to do a _shitty paint job_ inside their apartment.”

 

“Rory you are going be at this for an hour, two tops, and when I step out you are going to call a professional to come finish the job.”

 

“What a completely unsubstantiated idea,” she sniffs, “That would require me to have the foresight of knowing you actually planned on leaving the apartment today.”

 

“And why wouldn’t I?”

 

“Because you are basically a hermit when you’re in a writing groove,” Rory replies, taking a screwdriver to the lid of one of the paint cans. “Besides, I’m all you have. Who else would want to be near you when you’re like this? I don’t even think you’ve showered at all this week.”

 

“Remind me why we all think you’re so smart when you just like to go for the cheap and lazy insults?”

 

“Don’t you have something better to do than stand around if you aren’t going to help?”

 

“Nah, now I think I’ll just grab a chair and watch.”

 

Rory glares at him. “I don’t think you should do that… you wouldn’t want me to _accidentally_ spill any of this paint you.”

 

Jess raises his hands in surrender, moving towards his front door and grabbing his keys off the counter. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

 

“Just as I planned,’ Rory chimes from the living room, “Now I can contact the professional painter.”

 

“Called it.”

 

 

 

—

 

 

  

When he returns later that day Rory’s only completed about a third of the living room. He can’t help but watch her, just a tiny bit mesmerized as her arm moves, rolling the brush against the wall in a methodological sort of way. At least, that’s what it appears like to him. The paint fumes are probably just getting to him, so much that they are enough for Jess to tear open the packaging of the second paint roller and join Rory.  

 

“I sincerely hope you don’t ruin all my hard work.”

 

“I’m painting a wall,” he responds, “I sincerely doubt I can do a worse job than you.”

 

Rory huffs, finishing the end of the room she had been working on. “I know simple things come very slow to you Jess, but there are just some things I’m always going to be better at than you.”

 

“Like what? _Painting_?”

 

“Fine motor skills, yes.”

 

Jess laughs. “And what, pray tell, is something I might be better at than you?”

 

Rory puts down her paint roller, eyebrows knitting together, like she’s in deep thought. “Not much I’m afraid.”

 

He steps closer, holding his brush up to her with an outstretched arm. Rory takes a steps back on instinct. “You want to take another minute to think that over again?”

 

“Not really,” Her mouth quivers and if she moves any further away from him she’ll walk right into the wall she just painted. “Are you trying to get paint on me? Because I guess you are much better at being irritating than me.”

 

Jess relents, returning to the area he had previously been working on. “How insightful,” he snickers.

 

It’s almost midnight when they finish. He sighs, throwing the roller down into the aluminum pan. Rory has already changed out of his shirt and into her pajamas, her hair still tied back away from her face. She comes to stand next to him at the kitchen sink and starts to wash her hands alongside his. It reminds Jess of a lot of things. Like how Rory is capable of snapping him in half, of tearing out his throat. But he also remembers the sort of peace she gave him, the moments where he looked at her and felt like perhaps, just maybe, she understood him in a way that nobody else did or ever would. Of leaving her mark on him even after all the bruises are gone.

 

“I can’t believe it took us this long to finish painting one tiny room.”

 

Rory glances away and then back at him. “I took a break while you were gone.”

 

“I figured.”

 

“No, like a _really_ long break,” she clarifies, “Started looking and applying for openings for something more permanent than writing contributing articles for a living.”

 

“That’s great,” he replies, “What did you find?”

 

“Kind of looked all over the place. Junior editing, newsroom producing, even looked at graduate programs again. I used to do that when I was in California.”

 

Jess smiles.  

 

“I just suddenly felt like I had things I really needed to make sense of," she answers honestly, "…Which is why it took so long.”

 

He shrugs. “It’s just paint.”

 

“Thanks for letting me do this,” she says, drying her hands on the kitchen towel. “I know this wasn’t how you wanted to spend your Saturday, having all your stuff moved around and your place smelling like it’s been fumigated.”

 

Jess bites his lip. “It could have been a lot worse. We could have gone with daffodil.”

  

 


End file.
